


Central Park Encounters

by Lrabbithole



Category: The Bold Type
Genre: AU Meeting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 15:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14428032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lrabbithole/pseuds/Lrabbithole
Summary: Kat sees a mistery woman in Central Park and can't stop looking at her.





	Central Park Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by a list of promps about AU ways to meet. I used the first one “I came to the gym to work out and I can’t stop watching you”, but ended with something that has nothing to do with a gym...ups.

Kat hates the gym, she hates exercise in general. Pretty much any kind of cardio, except a really specific one, is out of the question if she can help it. Everyone knows it, and usually she can avoid exercise with no problem. Except for that week.

On Monday, the elevator at Scarlet’s office breaks down and she has to climb 10 stories through the stairs. Thursday, the instructor for the Soul Bike event cancels, an hour before it’s due to start. She has no option but to lead the thing herself, after watching a couple Youtube videos for inspiration.

She is ready for a weekend of relaxing at home when Jane and Sutton start texting her. Next thing she knows, she has agreed to wake up at 8:00 a.m on a Saturday to go running around Central Park. When her phone’s alarm starts ringing, she briefly considers finding new best friends. 

Kat complains for a solid ten minutes about being out so early, she does it mostly to save face. The soft spring sun has finally started warming New York’s city streets after a long winter, and it feels good to feel the fresh air in her lungs. As long as she is with Jane and Sutton, exercise is not that bad. They at least get to gossip,and have brunch afterwards. 

They’ve been running for half an hour, when Kat feels her eyes drifting towards a small woman sitting on the grass, 3 different cameras laying around a plaid white and red blanket. Kat things that maybe is the bright blue scarf wrapped around the woman's head what caughts her attention, but is the closed eyes and peaceful smile what makes it impossible to look away.

She keeps running, but barely looks at the path, Sutton and Jane’s voice no more than background noise at this point.

“Hey, watch out!” a random guy screaming and Sutton’s hand grabbing her arm bring Kat back to reality. She had almost crashed into a group running in the opposite direction.

“Wow, I didn’t see them coming at all,” is what she manages to say, while coming to a stop.

“Yeah, we could tell. Did something happen? Are you OK.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I just got distracted.”

The almost accident becomes the perfect excuse to finish exercising. And Kat takes the chance to conveniently find a bench with a perfect view of the mystery woman.

A part of her brain can tell her friends are still talking about work and their love life problems, she even chimes in once in a while with a well placed “Sure, babe” or “Yes, girl”, but her mind is somewhere else now. About a 100 feet in front of her to be more precise. 

The mystery woman just sits there, sun washing over her skin. Once in a while she picks up one of her cameras and takes a couple shots of the people walking around her.

Kat feels like she can watch her all day. Wondering every time she picks up the camera what is she thinking, what makes those people worthy of her attention. Kat wonders what would happen if she got up and walked past her, would she pick up her interest, would she end up as one of her accidental models, or would she ignore her, not seeing in her anything worth preserving forever.

Kat is too afraid to find out, so she lets her friends lead the way out of the park and towards a morning full of mimosas. 

Kat starts running every Saturday. Always the same path, always at the same hour. Every time she finds an excuse to sit in the exact same bench. If her friends think is strange, they don’t say anything. Not at first at least. 

The mystery woman isn’t always there, Kat tries to tell herself she isn’t running hoping to see her, but when there’s no scarf covered head among the park’s crowd she can’t help but feel disappointed. Thankfully, most of the time Kat finds her. Sometimes with a camera, just like the first time, others with a notebook and an array of pencils around her, others lost in a book. No matter what the other woman is doing, Kat can never stop looking.

Kat is not shy, she has no problem making new friends or introducing herself to strangers. Hell, it’s part of her job to charm people she has never meet before. But she enjoys just looking at this woman, with no pressure or expectations, the both of them just being, existing at the same time, connected without really knowing each other. 

Kat has learned to tune out her friends enough to not miss anything mystery girl does, while still paying enough attention to follow their conversation. As soon as she heards Sutton mentioning her name she snaps back to reality.

“Hey Jane, 20 bucks that Kat gets a date with the girl she has been stalking by next week.”

“No way. $50 she won’t even talk to her for at least another two weeks.” 

She stares at them for what seems like minutes before letting out a chuckle that sounds fake even to her own ears.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“We are talking about your obvious crush on the photographer over there,” Kat’s protesting is interrupted by a hand over her mouth.

“Don’t even try to deny it. You’ve been making us wake up at 8:00 a.m. on Saturdays to run for a month.”

“You hate running.”

“And waking up early”

Kat still tries to express her disagreement by crossing her arms, but Jane and Sutton just stare at her with identical skeptical looks.

“You’ve been watching her, we’ve been watching you. She is the only common factor every Saturday.”

“And the one Saturday she didn’t show up you looked like someone stole your puppy all weekend.”

“Really Kat, I love you,” said Sutton finally moving her hand away. “But you better ask her out soon or all this stalking stuff is going to turn creepy.”

“I’m not stalking her,” Kat says through her teeth, afraid that somehow the other woman will hear. Jane and Sutton look at each other and then back at her in obvious disagreement.

“Ok, fine. I enjoy watching her from afar, but it’s not like I’m going to follow her home or anything. She just seems interesting.” 

“I agree, she does.” Kat thinks that’s the end of it, but Jane keeps talking. “So, what are you gonna do about it?”

Kat would prefer to run for another hour instead of being interrogated by her friends about this, but she knows there’s no way out of it now. 

“I can’t go and be like ‘Hey I been watching you without you realizing for weeks, nice to meet you’ so I won’t do anything about it.”

“Kat, I’m sure...”

“Drop it, Jane”

Thankfully they do. They don’t mention it again all week, and when she says she doesn’t want to go running that week they don’t question it either. Kat does go to the park, she wasn’t planning to, but after a sleepless night staring at the ceiling, she can’t fight the urge to see the mystery woman one last time. 

She doesn’t bother with running though, just goes straight to the park bench, her park bench, and waits. It’s not long before she sees her, camera as always in hand and a beautiful purple hijab around her head.

Kat loses herself to watching the other woman, as always. She is so far gone she doesn’t even realize the camera, and the woman behind it, are turning to look in her direction. When she notices, her first instinct is to look away, but she doesn’t, she keeps staring straight ahead until the camera goes down and is brown eyes looking back at her.

She doesn’t know for how long they stare at each other before the camera comes up again. The faint sound of a shutter bringing Kat back to reality. She smiles, gets up and starts walking with newfound determination. Maybe Jane was right, maybe she can do something about it.


End file.
